The University of California at Riverside is one of the most diverse campuses in the nation and is located in one of the most rapidly growing and diverse regions of the United States. Most of the undergraduate students at UCR come from this region. Thus, there is a broad base of students from which to select and promote interest in a research career in the biomedically-related sciences. The Overall Goals of the MARC U* Program at the University of California, Riverside is to increase the number of eligible undergraduate minority students pursuing a PhD degree and a research career in the biomedically-related sciences. The Measurable Objective of the MARC U* Program is to increase the number of minority students going into PhD programs by one each year. The Overall Institutional Goal is to promote undergraduate research and to produce a large number of underprivileged and underrepresented minority students at UCR. This grant provides a Pre-MARC Development Program to increase the eligible pool of students for the Trainee Research Program. The goals of the MARC U* Program are the following: 1) Increase the pool of minority students eligible to become MARC U* Trainees by increasing the number of lower-division minority science majors at UCR that attain a GPA of 3.0 in Introductory Biology and Calculus; 2) provide support activities through tutoring, mentoring and a summer Pre-MARC Research Program by doubling the number of qualified minority students who apply to the MARC U* Training Program from an average of 15 to at least 30; 3) prepare MARC U* Trainees to become competitive for admission to and success in graduate school through research and other activities. The Measurable Objective is the percentage of student presentations at scientific meetings, authorship of scientific articles, and percentage of Trainees involved in extramural experiences will increase from 20% to 80%; 4) encourage MARC U* Trainees to apply to and graduate from PhD programs by increasing the number of Trainees who apply to and are accepted into PhD research programs to 100%. RELEVANCE: The increased number of highly qualified minority undergraduates produced by this MARC U* grant will be well prepared for entrance to PhD Programs and scientific research. The MARC U* Scholars will serve as role models in the scientific community to help break down racial concepts and barriers as well as producing interesting and productive research.